Black Holes could they be an illusion

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

This might sound a bit crazy but it occurred to me that Black Holes might not really exist. My theory is that all the mass of stars and dust and planets that appear to be orbiting a black hole, may actually have an average mass that would exist at the point of the hole.

To help anyone silly enough to listen, understand what I'm going on about, Imagine two stars orbiting each other. A binary i think you call it. If a third star was orbiting the two, would it orbit the biggest star or would it orbit the center of mass of the two stars. And how would this work if we added a million stars.

If this sounds like rubbish to you please tell me why and have a good laugh at my limited understanding.

Jas

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I'll wait for someone smarter than me to answer this.

Dave

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

Thats no fun David

[leinad (Dan)]

sorry, I just had to
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nlB2iavXqv...l+Illusion.jpg

Be interested to hear some comments on your question from the masters.

[AstroJunk (Jonathan)]

Originally Posted by Insane Climber

My theory is that all the mass of stars and dust and planets that appear to be orbiting a black hole, may actually have an average mass that would exist at the point of the hole.

For a great many years, the established theory of galaxy composition did not require a central super massive black hole. Globular clusters certainly do not contain black holes as you have sort of deduced. So the simple answer must be, if you have sufficient mass - no.

So I guess you will have to get out and weigh a few galaxies to disprove the existance of black holes. Don't worry if you can't find enough mass straight away, you are alowed to add as much 'dark matter' as you need to make the equation fit

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

This idea was put to me as a young apprentice nearly 30years ago, do Black Holes really exist? Never really thought about it until reading this thread.

Einstein theory (layman) if there is any mass the gravity should not be strong enough to pull in all light. E=MC2 this would means the mass inside the black hole would have to be pure energy. Pulsars seem to come close to the mass versus energy where some light escapes.

So if Black holes really exist and no light can escape this means that instead of mass being in the centre of a black hole it must be all energy.

Or just another theory not yet discovered.

Interested.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Insane Climber

This might sound a bit crazy but it occurred to me that Black Holes might not really exist. My theory is that all the mass of stars and dust and planets that appear to be orbiting a black hole, may actually have an average mass that would exist at the point of the hole.

To help anyone silly enough to listen, understand what I'm going on about, Imagine two stars orbiting each other. A binary i think you call it. If a third star was orbiting the two, would it orbit the biggest star or would it orbit the center of mass of the two stars. And how would this work if we added a million stars.

If this sounds like rubbish to you please tell me why and have a good laugh at my limited understanding.



Jas

Black holes have signatures that a centre of mass doesn't.
For example one doesn't get accretion matter forming around a centre of mass.

Particles of accretion matter falling into a black hole can collide prior to passing through the event horizon and are a source of X-ray radiation.

While this phenomena can also occur with other massive objects such as neutron stars and white dwarfs, since accretion matter is colliding onto a surface, the surface warms up and emits infra-red radiation.

Black holes by their nature are defined by an event horizon and not a surface and as such cannot emit infra-red radiation. Any form of radiation (except Hawking radiation) cannot pass through the event horizon back into space.

Regards

Steven

[xelasnave]

Well of course black holes are an illusion ... they are an extrapolation of the math of GR and even Dr A felt such a step was unjustified...however for what ever reason they have become a favorite flavour of both scientists and lay people... I blame the movies..scientists get to feel they have a conection to something trippy..as the movies train the public to believe... and the public are just as inclined to believe in black holes as much they are about to believe the latest "buffy" or "supernatural" tv dribble..yes bribble... so where do we get the black hole concept..from math extrapolation from a theory that says we can understand the Universe and gravity if we think about a human in a lift.. no I am not kind to GR but its influence on finding what we expect and want to find must be halted... remember the math of gr will be correct.. it is not the math that holds any fault but the premise upon which it is built offers room for extreme doubt as to rightfull application and therefore doubt as to any propositon built from such original premise... GR gives us black holes and dark matter and conveniently we can see neither... well math will not convince me the original premise was reasonable... dark matter..90% of our universe whatever we cant see..really who can buy that????

The suggestion that a black hole system comes from a binary relationship offers more reasonable expalaination of the observations than does GR... I believe we will not find a single "black hole" but a binary system the creates exterme gravitational influences... such a system offers better explaination of the "jets" and gr for me glosses over exactly how such jets can be generated..(that is my view based on a limited view etc and I am happy to be corrected in the interest of gaining better knowledge)...
So I say that black holes and there reality are not established... and dont give me a list from NASA their list is of spots that show signs consistent with the presence of a black hole on their approach to their existence...
AND on all this I am sure no one will disagree now that I have explained it so well.

alex

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

Originally Posted by AstroJunk

Don't worry if you can't find enough mass straight away, you are alowed to add as much 'dark matter' as you need to make the equation fit

Now That is funny.

I take it from everyones answers that apart from Mr Hawking, no one has any idea what a Black hole is. And apart from the apparent massive gravitational pull at the center of a galaxy, there is actually no proof they even exist. Oh hang on Hawking predicted the hawking radiation he must be right.

This leads me to ask. Why is it that astronomers talk about such theory's as if they are real? No wonder the general public raise there eyebrows whenever i mention i am interested in astronomy. It all sounds like a load of hooey.

Kind regards
Jas

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Originally Posted by Insane Climber

No wonder the general public raise there eyebrows whenever i mention i am interested in astronomy. It all sounds like a load of hooey.

Kind regards
Jas

Hi,

A lot of people will think you mean astrology . Certainly if you say something like "Oh, the moon will be in Leo tonight" when thinking about where to look.

Cheers

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

I've actually done a fair bit of reading on this subject. Might I recommend Black holes and warped space time by William Kaufman III. It's an old book now, but it's still pretty much valid. The wiki entry covers it reasonably well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

Dave

[sjastro]

Black holes are a logical outcome of Einstein's field equations in GR.

Detecting black holes is only a matter of time.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

Regards

Steven

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Scientists are certain that there are massive black holes at the center of each galaxy. By observing star movements around the centre of our galaxy, they can deduce the mass of the object that they are orbiting. There is no way as far as we know that something with 2 billion solar masses can exist and not be illuminated, unless it's a black hole.

The process of stellar evolution will pretty much guarantee supernovas, pulsars, neutron stars and black holes. I don't pretend to be an expert, and I can't remember the entirety of the technical arguments. Black holes fit in with galaxy evolution too it seems, at least according to the most recent research. Scientists now think that black holes come first, followed by galaxy evolution. Maybe in those very first instants after the big bang, physics was different, and ultra massive stars with billions of masses could develop. The larger a star, the shorter its lifespan..

Dave

Originally Posted by sjastro

Black holes are a logical outcome of Einstein's field equations in GR.

Detecting black holes is only a matter of time.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

Regards

Steven

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

I think you guy's just overloaded my brain, i can't stop thinking about black holes now,

Is it possible for an amateur to detect any of the effects of a black hole? It seems to me that possibly we could see the effect of gravitational lensing.

This link has some animations and video of the centre of the milky way taken over 16 years
http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/p...hot-46-08.html

[leinad (Dan)]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...lack-hole.html

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Is it possible for an amateur to detect any of the effects of a black hole?

For Backyard astronomy I don't think it would be possible. I watched a podcast on 365dayofastronomy of a young Norwegian girl with no experienced joined Galaxy Zoo and discovered a once only anomoly.

Now it is called Hanna's Voorwerp (Hanna's Object). She emailed Galaxy Zoo's administrator said some strange thing and was given the object her name. She hasn't even got a scope.

[Robh (Rob)]

I'm may not be the best consultant on black holes but this is more about what constitutes sufficient evidence for a theory.
Are black holes just an illusion? Certainly their existence hasn't been proven without a shadow of a doubt; as witnessed by published lists that refer to these objects only as possible candidates for black holes.

The theoretical existence of black holes was predicted long before any candidates were found. The Schwarzschild radius describes the size of the sphere that a mass must collapse into and become a black hole. The surface of this sphere is popularly known as the event horizon. For example if all the Sun's mass were squashed into a sphere of radius 3km, it would become a black hole. General relativity provides models for the effects of black holes on matter and space but it does not prove the actual existence of such objects.

So what constitutes sufficient proof in science? The theory must explain observations and be consistent with all known facts. Continued observations must confirm the theory and verify any predictions made by it. This is the position with the theory of evolution. No new evidence has arisen to put it in doubt.

Where do we find some likely black holes (or BHs for short)?
BHs often form accretion disks and associated relativistic jets. These interactions cause strong X-ray and gamma ray emissions. The nuclei of quasars are believed to contain super-massive BHs that power accretion disks. There are more than 200000 known quasars.
Some strong candidates for super-massive black holes are Sgr A* in the Milky Way core and at the core of M87.
BHs may exist in binary systems. A BH might be seen to accrete matter from an orbiting star. This is the believed scenario for Cygnus X-1.
Gravitational lensing might turn up some evidence for BHs.

So what do we get out of this? Theoretical physics say BHs are possible. There is a huge number of candidates which appear to exhibit BH activity. New observations are producing better evidence for BH activity. It appears BHs are the most feasible explanation for the observed phenomena.
With better understanding, astronomers are developing more definite signatures for BHs e.g. event horizon dark shadow or evidence of frame-dragging.
Do they actually exist? My feeling is that the evidence is building to a strong "yes".

Regards, Rob

[Astro78]

Originally Posted by Insane Climber

This might sound a bit crazy but it occurred to me that Black Holes might not really exist. My theory is that all the mass of stars and dust and planets that appear to be orbiting a black hole, may actually have an average mass that would exist at the point of the hole.

To help anyone silly enough to listen, understand what I'm going on about, Imagine two stars orbiting each other. A binary i think you call it. If a third star was orbiting the two, would it orbit the biggest star or would it orbit the center of mass of the two stars. And how would this work if we added a million stars.

If this sounds like rubbish to you please tell me why and have a good laugh at my limited understanding.

Jas

Great proposition Sir and this cannot be laughed at - Posit: 1.Gravity is weak especially at distance. 2.The quantum world is increasingly bizzare (not holding our understanding of the 'rules of the game', ie> anything goes, or at least with 2009 understanding). 3.Matter as we see and detect it will change greatly in the future. 4.Understanding of time is our greatest error. 5. We cant see the link yet between 'our world' and the quantum, so it doesn't exist - frack that!

PS: Steven is spot on btw. The above is pure posit

[Enchilada]

Black Holes could they be an illusion ?

This is like asking does an observer inside the event horizon know anything about the Universe. I.e. Universe(s) could they be an illusion?

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by Robh

So what do we get out of this? Theoretical physics say BHs are possible.

A lot of our advancments now-a-days has been from Theoretical Physics with their eventual ways of practically demonstrating them.

They form an integral part of the need to understand our universe but we can't dismiss other non qualified people as well, as in some cases some of the simplist ideas turn out to be correct.

So far without the Theorists we wouldn't be at the stage of trying to generate a Black Hole to understand. I believe it could be close to a solution but need to be prepared tfor the practicle outcome may not be what people expect and sometimes it is difficult for people to let go.

Either that or the experiment fails.